Consciousness

Public Groupactive 1 week, 6 days ago

How do we (atheists) define it?
How do philosophers define it?
How do scientists define it?
How do theologians define it?
How do others, and history and myth define it?
How do YOU, personally define it?

I tend to gravitate to evolution as the prime driver for biological answers. With humans, I am not so sure these days. Have we even been subjected to natural selection for the past hundreds of thousands of years? Before laser surgery I was blind to anything beyond three feet away. Not a lot of near-sighted fish swimming around. The more socially…[Read more]

I, too, think the author doesn’t have a complete understanding of his proposal(s), but as you point out Davis, the meta-conciousness construct is useful to consider when describing consciousness. I think we still need more depth in understanding various types of self-awareness, e.g. more than just being able to recognize ourselves in the mirror,…[Read more]

Indeed Robert but the questions I’m talking about start with his question but then go beyond the authors argument and not limiting consciousness to the “experience, rerepresentation, cognitive realisations and evocation.

I admire the guy and his interesting proposal. In any case, we shouldn’t take this article too too seriously. All writings on…[Read more]

Of course the possibility that a baby in the womb has some level of consciousness, no matter how underdeveloped…well; you know where I am going. The awareness component may not be there yet…that is the distinction the author seems to make.

Great article. I particularly like his explanation of mistaking meta-consciousness with consciousness.

When infants become conscious/meta-conscious (assuming they weren’t when born) is part of one of the annoying pesky questions about consciousness. If children aren’t born conscious then there must be a moment that they become conscious and d…[Read more]

An article on the neuroscience of infant consciousness, which attracted some interest a few years ago, asked: “When does your baby become conscious?” The premise, of course, was that babies aren’t born conscious but, instead, develop conscio…[Read more]

Certain animals such as crows, elephants and chimps appear to be self aware and even understand something about death. Consciousness could have an evolutionary purpose for social animals…it could result in more cooperation and a better chance at survival. Through consciousness we have a conscience.

“Curation” Policy Note: Sometimes I’ll want to edit, combine, re-arrange, and even index some posts so that this group is easier to search and navigate by members (especially new members). For example, comments and links that are posted in the Home (“updates”) section can become much more useful in a related Forum Topic.

@Unseen would you mind if I copy the updates you’ve provided into a new Consciousness Forum topic I’d like to start named John Searle? (See the update to our Consciousness group description, which I’m not actually binding anyone to at this time.)

Does consciousness have a use? (a USE, not a purpose.)
An analogy: a hammer has a use, to drive nails. Without nails, would hammers exist? I think not, so I would start with Does consciousness has a use?

As I currently think of consciousness as an “emergent” character, I’m not sure how precisely to answer that, other than to say that ALL brain processes result from evolutionary tuning. How those processes together are “used” is most probably understood insofar as to how they enhance individual survivabilty, and species survivability, including…[Read more]